


Boyfriends and Blanket Cocoons

by plush_anon



Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Nightmare Dork University - Fandom, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Emetophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attack, Pitchiner being a good boyfriend, Vomit, You Have Been Warned, almost entirely comfort and soft happy fluffy things, and midterms, but first PAIN, but only because he's started drinking coffee for midterms and it's an immense shock to the system, it's making the Black family resemblance show like nothing else, migraines, mildly OOC! Proto here, some intense language, split into multiple chapters bc my brain cannot get the freaking memo behind a oneshot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-16 20:09:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11260074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plush_anon/pseuds/plush_anon
Summary: Pitchiner comes home to a Pitch in pain and misery, and decides to do what he can to make him feel better.It's all comfort and fluff from there, friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the ROTG Favorite Ship Week - specifically, the Therapeutic prompt. Hope you like it!
> 
> Also heavily inspired by this set of pictures by the lovely peachsweater:
> 
> http://plush-anon.tumblr.com/post/88483985406/peachsweater-apparently-my-migraines-never

Everything was loud. 

Too loud. And bright.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe. He was shaking, just managing to shut the door behind him before he fell to the floor. His head was a mess of sharpness and dizzying sounds, all startlingly clear and cutting. 

It was too much. 

He needed quiet. And darkness, and softness, and – 

The sun reflecting off a passing car spiked through the kitchen window, and his stomach lurched. He barely made it to the edge of the sink before he lost his pitiful breakfast, the smell of soured milk sticking to his teeth. Oh god, oh god, make it stop, shut up shut up shut up… He choked back a sob, and spat it back up as he continued to dry heave, body clenched and shaking. 

But that did nothing to settle him, like it usually did - it didn't feel like his nerves had settled any, his thoughts momentarily purged from existence and left to wash away. He was still shaking, head still buzzing and squeezing in the faint light of the apartment, the small, inconspicuous background sounds actually making everything _worse_ \- the high-pitched whine of the television, the incessant drone of the air purifier, and that damned clock of Proto's, ticking and tocking away on the wall like it had any right to - !

He had no choice in the matter. He had to shut it off. Shut it all off, shut it down.

_**“You never could handle honesty, could you?”** _

He started by yanking the microwave plug out of the wall, and moved to attack the window shades. 

_“If only he were more like his brother…”_

He slowly and methodically made his way through the apartment, sometimes crawling to get to where he needed. 

_“What a waste.”_

_**“Such a pity.”**_

He had to shut everything down, he couldn’t think, he needed quiet… his thoughts and memories whirled, to the point he could barely tell them apart, and his stomach lurched against the back of his eyes.

_“Why can’t you do this? You should be able to do it, look at Piki!”_

_**“Why is this so hard for you to understand?”** _

_“Shame, I thought you’d be more interesting than this.”_

He should be happy – should be relaxed, and resting now that he’d finished up his midterms before Spring Break. He should be good, feeling fine – use his free space to plan, to work on another play, to....

To…

_“What’s wrong with me?”_

_“Why can’t you be normal for once?”_

_**“God, you’re such a mess.”**_

_“C’mon, learn to take a joke every once in a while.”_

To…

_“Why’s he in the hospital this time?”_

_“He only does it for attention, I swear.”_

_**“There’s such potential here, but no worthwhile follow-through.”** _

_“Are you even listening to me?”_

_**“Why can’t you ever be good enough?”** _

_“What on earth is wrong with him now?”_

He stuffed a washcloth into the bathtub faucet while the voices in his head spun and cut and bruised, breathing heavily through the pulsing at his temples, at his neck, his wrists, his teeth, his tongue. His chest seized up, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. 

He needed help, he knew that – but god knows nobody would (why would they? Waste of time, waste of space, waste of effort). He finally broke the chokehold on his lungs, and felt a flurry of sobs wrack his frame. His fingers dug into his hair and pulled his head down into his knees, (stop it, this is embarrassing, get a hold of yourself), hiccupping between his wheezes (totally and utterly useless, I swear). 

He needed to get to his bed, he knew. He needed to close the door. 

But he couldn’t move, muscles aching and wound tighter than that stupid clock he’d pulled down and shoved into Proto’s room.

He whimpered, hurt and aching, head throbbing. 

“I’m sorry.”

The voices kept getting louder. 

“I’m sorry, I-I don’t know what I can do anymore, please stop, please, make it stop…”

“Help me…”

But nobody came. 

Leaving a pain-riddled Pitch Black dry-heaving into a towel, and curled up at the bottom of their tiny bathroom tub for hours yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pitchiner comes home after his last grueling midterm to a distressing scene.
> 
> It isn't pretty.
> 
> (very short blurb - as I said, originally a oneshot, but it works better with some breaks in between).

When Pitchiner managed to dredge himself through the door after his last midterm of the day, he found a dark and silent apartment. 

Now, this wasn't terribly unusual to come home to - Proto would often turn down the lights or unplug a handful of devices for his own personal (read: nefarious) purposes - but that wasn't possible. Pitchiner had slogged past the library barely 20 minutes before and spotted his boogeyman of a roommate through the window-wall of one of the private study rooms, Mr. Pickles clutched to his chest as he sifted through a biochemistry textbook. His eyes were abnormally large (well, larger than normal, which he didn't even think was possible for him?), and Koz could have sworn he saw their coffee maker hooked up and perched on top of a stack of library books. And considering Proto's more... unique culinary tastes, it was like watching a weird episode of the Twilight Zone.

And considering everything about that statement, as well as the creep involved, that was extremely unusual. 

So it likely wasn't Proto who'd left their apartment so - hollow, for lack of a better term. Pitchiner pricked his ears for the sound of anything - the air conditioner, the bathroom faucet that always leaked, Pitch's air purifier, that really creepy cuckoo clock that Jack had given Proto for his birthday, leaving Piki fuming in quiet, chihuahua-like fury - and found nothing. He grabbed one of his lacrosse sticks leaning by the door, and eased himself into the living room, reaching out to flick the light switch on the wall behind him. 

But there was nothing.

Nothing stolen, or missing, at least – everything else, though, was in slight disarray. The windows were shuttered with the curtains haphazardly closed, while the major electronics were all unplugged. The living room rug looked like something had been dragged over it, pulling the corners inward, while the coffee table was on its side. It looked like someone had gotten tipsy and stumbled over a few things while trying to unplug everything, but ultimately nothing too serious.

Yet.

Pitchiner stepped delicately through the disarray, taking note of everything and becoming significantly more concerned the further in he got. Proto's clock was gone (how?!?), some of Pitch's usually pristine textbooks were splayed open with creased pages, and the garbage can was on its side (but not spread across the floor). Koz knew something worse was up than some asshole who'd tried to break in and jack something when he found vomit in the sink, already starting to dry and cluster. As he turned the taps on to full-blast to wash it away (no one liked sink vomit, not even Proto), he heard a whimper on the edge of his ears, and turned.

The bathroom door was ajar.

Setting aside his crosse, Koz strode forward into the bathroom, determined to see just what the fuck was going on. 

A tight, hitched sob was the only warning he got before the fluorescent lights fluttered on. Pitch cried out from somewhere, wordless and small, and he fumbled. "Pitch? Pitch, what's going on, where-" 

"Off," he whimpered. "Off, turn it off. P-please, I-I can't-" he interrupted himself to retch, a dry, hacking sound that left Pitchiner wincing. 

The larger man complied, if only because he'd never heard Pitch sound so hurt, or so shaken. He blinked rapidly at the spots in his sight, and shifted forward along the tile. "Pitch, sweetheart, what's wrong?" 

He stumbled over the muppet skin they called a bathroom rug and swore. "Motherfucking piece of -" 

"I'm sorry." 

At that, Pitchiner froze, and finally made out Pitch's form huddled tightly in the shallow basin of their bathtub. "What?" 

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I know I'm a waste, I'm useless and stupid and I'm sorry..." the slighter man curled in on himself, trailing off into a jumble of self-reproach and apologies against the porcelain sides. 

Koz could only stare at the outline of his form, shocked still. Finally, he made to move forward. "Pitch?"

"...go 'way."

"Huh?"

"P-please, just... leave me. I can't... everything hurts, and I can't do anything right. Just - _please_ , Cossimo."

He sounded so lost in that moment that Pitchiner should have insisted on staying. Should have scooped him up, should have wrapped his arms around the poor trembling twig of a man and clung tight until whatever **this** was faded a little more, and the two could talk.

But he was caught off-guard by this sight, by this crying, shaking Pitch who seemed so broken up that he couldn't possibly be the same person. Pitch was snarky and prickly and irritable and loud, a perfectionist to a fault who was measured against a twin who hadn't ever appeared to fail at anything he attempted to do. Pitchiner had seen him with bad headaches, seen him struggling to maintain some form of composure after the inevitable side-by-side comparisons to Piki he always faced and was always found lacking in, seen him seething and wounded at biting criticisms and ready to spit something back out that was equally as venomous - but this was something new and unexpected. Something he didn't feel equipped to handle without further insight from someone who had known him before he came to NDU.

He left the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him. His breath wooshed out of him in one go, and his head thumped against the doorframe.

He was going to have to call Proto about this.

Shit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pitchiner finds that a Proto who has attempted to drown himself liberally in coffee-related caffeine bears a much greater resemblance to his cousins than a Proto who has not.

"Cossimo Pitchiner, if this isn't a life or death situation I will castrate you by means of pre-med textbook-oriented papercut, what do you want?" 

"Well, hello to you too sunshine." Pitchiner leaned back against the apartment door, and ran a hand through his hair. He would have stayed closer to Pitch, but found that it felt... wrong somehow, to grill Proto about how to take care of him while he was quietly wailing in the bathtub. "No swooning declarations of love, no cheerful hatemuffin-esque nickname? I'm shocked." 

"Get to the point, you fatheaded lugnut, what is it?" 

"Snippy, snippy, honeybuns," he grinned; but his humor faded, and he cleared his throat. "In all seriousness though, I need to ask you something." 

"Oh! Well then, alright! Is it, 'Proto darling, can I get you anything from the store to help you with your remaining four midterm exams, particularly from the coffee section of the store that rhymes with espresso'?" 

Pitchiner snorted. "I thought coffee was an unnecessary impurity that we needed to 'transcend ourselves' away from. Since when did that change?" 

"Since when my professors thought it would be amusing to schedule everything into one day of L Ron Hubbard levels of hell. In dire times, Cossimo, one must resort to ...baser methods to survive such dismal conditions. So, are you offering to buy me a crate or two of coffee in exchange for my continued sanity?" 

"Uh... no. But -" 

The normally composed Proto interrupted him, voice wired and a mite frantic. "Then it doesn't matter and it can wait until next week, goodbye." 

"Wait, NO, don't -! Something's wrong with Pitch." 

"Well, what else is - " 

"Shut it." Miraculously, he complied. "I – I mean it, seriously, something's really, REALLY wrong with Pitch. I came back from my last midterm -" 

"Oh, well good for you, _stronzo_ -" 

"- and everything was shut off. Lights, electronics - he even muffled the bathroom sink and hid your creepy-as-shit cuckoo clock... somewhere. He was... he is crying. He's whimpering like he's in severe, agonizing pain and begging me to keep the lights off." 

That shut Proto up. For about twelve seconds, mind, but Pitchiner was willing to take anything at this point. "So tell me, Cthulhu-made-flesh, what the fuck is going on? I've seen him with stomach flu, but that fiasco's got nothing on this one, lemme tell you." 

A shuffle of pages, and a brief sip. "Oh." 

"Oh?"

"Oh dear." 

"Not helping me here any, Lurch." 

"My dear cousin is having one of his migraines. Quite honestly, I'm surprised you haven't encountered one bef- GET OUT YOU MISCREANTS DOES IT LOOK LIKE THIS ROOM IS EMPTY TO YOU?!?" Pitchiner shrieked and threw his phone away from his ear in shock, and stared as a veritable stream of petty insults screamed out in a tinny, high-pitched whine - in English no less. Finally the insults ceased, and he felt safe(ish) in placing it against his head again. 

"...unless it went beyond that. So, tell me, did he mention anything vaguely existential, finding himself worthless, that sort of thing?" 

"Wait, how did you - uh, nevermind. Yeah, why?" 

"Well goody, that means that he's also quite possibly suffering a very intense, near-hallucinatory anxiety attack induced by the stress of finals and his tendency to withdraw from eating when he gets stressed." 

"Oh." Proto snorted.

"Yes, _oh_ , how eloquent we are today. Did you use up your vocabulary in your English exam?" 

"Yeah, I used it up faster than you're draining coffee dregs right now." 

"Goodbye, oaf." 

"WAIT! Wait, just," Pitchiner sighed, massaged the bridge of his nose, and tried not to convince himself that he really did want the 'normal' Proto back instead of this strange, alternate version of him that came from a universe where he was the third Black triplet, instead of their kooky Addams Family-style cousin. "What - what do I do here? To help him? I don't - I don't really know. I've never seen him hurt like this before." 

"Just, leave him alone until he falls asleep, he'll get over it soon enough." 

This time, Pitchiner was the one to startle Proto. He'd savor it later. "WHAT?!? The fuck kind of family are you to just -" 

"Listen here, man-child, and gods help me you WILL listen well."

Oh shit. Mad Proto was Bad Proto. He’d fucked up. Stuffed weasels would haunt his nightmares until the end of time. 

"Normally I would analyse this in further detail, because this sounds far more interesting than memorizing biochemical compounds needed for treating bipolar disorders, if it's as bad as you say it is, or call in Piki to help deal with this. But Piki is out of the gods-damned country, and I have four fucking finals starting tomorrow at 8 in the morning over chemical reactions, as well as a single-spaced, twelve-page paper due before 3. I have no time to be my usual pleasant self-" Pleasant his fucking foot. "-because some scrotum-hatted sack of excrement decided to rearrange our midterm schedule at the literally last fucking minute. Do whatever you want. It will make things worse, most likely, but everything does when he gets even remotely like this, migraine or existential crisis or otherwise. Goodbye." 

There was a rather resounding click, and the dial tone weaned through the speaker. Koz thudded back against the wall and groaned, sliding a hand down his face. “Doctor Google it is then. Fuck.”

Maybe it wouldn't blow up in his face, he thought, as he pulled up a Wikipedia article. Maybe things would go smoothly for a change. 

The muffled sound of a weak sob floated down the hall, and he winced as he scrolled through the migraine articles. 

Then again, maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> I did plan on this being a one-shot, but I've decided to split it up into smaller chunks. Hopefully everyone likes!


End file.
